


Black Heart

by twyly56



Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Accidents, Canon-Typical Cannibalism, Canon-Typical Violence, College Student Eddie Brock, Escape, Fever, Gender-Neutral Venom Symbiote (Marvel), Hearing Voices, Hiding, Hungry Venom Symbiote (Marvel), Journalism, Journalist Eddie Brock, Kidnapped Eddie Brock, Kidnapping, Motorcycles, Nightmares, Other, Panic Attacks, Partial Mind Control, Possessive Venom Symbiote (Marvel), Protective Venom Symbiote (Marvel), Running Away, San Francisco, Seizures, Sharing a Body, Starvation, Venom Symbiote Takes Care of Eddie Brock
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-06
Updated: 2019-01-15
Packaged: 2019-08-19 17:02:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16538630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twyly56/pseuds/twyly56
Summary: Eddie is just another broke college student wandering the streets of downtown San Francisco when it happens. He gets kidnapped by some masked men, and he wakes up in a glass cage type thing with these scientists staring at him. They tell him not to be afraid. Then, the capsule in the middle of the room opens.





	1. Prologue

His cheek was pressed against something cold and flat. The young man cracked his eyes open blearily. Vague, dull colors blurred slowly into focus as he blinked. He peeled himself off the floor with some difficulty. His limbs felt like they were filled with lead. They were so heavy. A consistent painful rhythm beat behind his eyes, growing more present the more he moved. He squinted against the harsh fluorescent lights that flooded his vision. 

Men and women in stiff lab coats held clipboards in their arms, black ballpoint pens in their hands. Eddie shook his head, wincing at the discomfort that sparked in his head. His dark hair hung over his forehead messily as he leaned forward, placing his hands on the solid glass walls. His clothes were different. They weren't his. These ones were all white, loose and cottony. Eddie stumbled to his feet and glanced around himself. 

The room was bare except for a single metal table in the center. A large capsule made of glass and metal sat on top of it. Something black and fluid moved inside of the capsule. Whatever it was, it made him uneasy. Eddie looked through the glass at the people on the other side. He banged his fist on the glass. 

"Hey!" His voice cracked. He swallowed, wetting his mouth. "Hey! Let me out of here!" 

A neatly dressed man, the only one wearing a suit, stepped ahead of his colleagues. Eddie recognized him from the news. Carlton Drake. The CEO of the Life Foundation. 

"Don't be afraid, Eddie," he said. 

"Let me out. Please," Eddie begged. His sweaty palms slid on the slick glass. 

"Do you know the story behind your name?" Drake asked. 

What the hell? 

"Edward is an English name. It means wealthy or fortunate guardian," the CEO told him. 

Eddie didn't really care about what his name meant. He just wanted to get out of here. His blue eyes darted around to the faces of the other scientists. They all looked at him like he was a particularly interesting insect. He snapped back to the older man's words as his tone grew more impassioned. 

"Look around at the world… what do you see? A planet at the brink of collapse. Human beings… are disposable! But man, and symbiote - combined. This is a new race. New species. A higher life form," Drake explained. 

Symbiote? Combined? What - what was he talking about? 

Eddie's mind was still partially under the influence of whatever drugs they had forced into him earlier, so it only made his head hurt worse to try to figure out what he was saying. 

"Don't be afraid, Eddie," Drake said. He laid his palm over the glass where Eddie's left hand was. "God has abandoned us... but I won't." 

That... didn't make him feel any better. 

Drake looked back at one of the scientists. He made a hand gesture. 

"Open the capsule," he ordered. 

Eddie spun around when he heard a low hissing sound of pressure being released. The black, oozing thing fluidly slunk out of the capsule and flowed off the table onto the ground. It began to slink toward him. He pounded his fists on the glass again. His hands ached from the futile efforts. 

"No. Let me out! Let me out," Eddie pleaded. 

His shaky legs gave out from under him, and he tumbled to the floor. His heart pounded in his ears as the black thing oozed over his bare foot and moved under his pant leg. It felt cold against his skin. 

"Oh, God. What is that thing?" Eddie asked. 

It climbed onto his chest and flattened itself. He shivered and jolted in place as he felt it _sink_ into his freaking skin. His eyes darkened slightly, and his lips parted in a silent o. His head thumped back against the glass hard. A bead of sweat rolled down from his temple. He shuddered. 

**Ours.**


	2. Chapter 2

Eddie had never felt this hungry before. Not even when he went on that two day fast his family had done for Mrs. Moretti's health. His stomach twisted and gurgled inside of him, and body wracking spasms of emptiness, of _need,_ pulsed through him periodically. And those bastards were still staring at him, marking things down on their stupid clipboards. Heat danced just under his skin, burning him from the inside out. The floor used to be cold, but now even it felt unbearably hot. Sweat beaded on his skin, plastering his dark hair to his forehead and neck, soaking through his cotton clothes. 

He just couldn't get comfortable. Eddie panted on the floor, his breath creating fog on the glass wall beside his head. He blinked at the sting of salt that irritated his right eye as a bead of sweat dribbled into it. He could hear his heart  _beat beat beat beating_ in his ears like he had just ran a marathon. Eddie's limbs were quite as heavy as before, but the combination of sweating to the point of dehydration and crippling hunger was rendering him incapable of actually moving much at all. 

 _"The assimilation is like nothing I've ever seen before. It's so complete,"_ one of the scientists remarked to his colleague.  _"The subject still has rather consistent vitals."_

Great. That was just great. Yeah, he definitely felt _consistent._  

He was just going to die here with some kind of horror movie monster stuck in his damn chest. Yay for him. 

Another pang of hunger struck him like a sledgehammer in the gut, and Eddie gasped, curling in on himself. It was a constant reel of: 

 **Food.** **Food.**   **Food. Food.** **Food.**   **Food.**

Eddie just wanted to scream at the voice in his head to shut up. He was pretty freaking aware that he was hungry. Ugh, if only he could focus on anything else. 

His eyes drifted to the small brunette woman in the corner. She was silent, brown eyes framed with rounded glasses. The scientist looked almost disturbed as she continued to stare at him. She noticed him watching her and glanced away. 

 _"What are your thoughts, Dr. Skirth?"_ the male scientist asked. 

 _"Yes... yes, it is extraordinary,"_ the woman murmured. Their voices sounded muted and tinny through the little speaker built into his cage. The male scientist turned away from the woman, satisfied with her answer. If he hadn't been watching her, Eddie would have missed her mouth,  _"But he's just a kid."_

 

All of the lights except for one was turned off in lab. Eddie felt himself roll onto his knees as the woman - Dr. Skirth - approached the glass wall alone. His sweat laden hair flopped over his eyebrows, brushing his eyelids when he leaned forward. His legs seemed to have a mind of their own as he was suddenly standing. His head swam nauseatingly. The emptiness in his stomach tightened. He placed his hands on the glass wall. 

"You need to stay right there, Eddie. Okay?" Dr. Skirth said, her soft voice stern. 

Her small fingers tapped in a sequence in the mechanical lock pad beside the door. There was a beeping sound and then, a hiss as the door slid open. The small scientist walked cautiously into the room with a syringe in her hand. She wheeled in something that reminded Eddie of a gurney except it was upright, and there were thick leather straps ready to be secured on the sides. A male scientist walked in after her. The door slid shut. Eddie felt something akin to rage bubble up in his chest. It wasn't his. Unease twisted his insides together in knots. He stepped back and looked at them with wild eyes. 

"He-hey now. What's that for?" Eddie asked. 

"We just need to run a few tests," the male scientist responded tersely. "Hold still." 

**Who the hell is this guy?**

"Who the hell are _you?"_ Eddie snapped back to the voice. 

The scientist just stared at him. 

"My name is not important. Don't make us call in security," he said. 

Eddie back up and held up his hands in front of him, shaking. Fear pooled ice cold in his belly. 

**What are you doing?**

"I'm putting my hands up," Eddie told it. 

**Why?**

"Because I don't have any other options, okay?" he hissed back. 

The scientists were looking at him like he was crazy. Hell, he probably was. 

**Not crazy, Eddie. _Ours._  **

Eddie was about to give it another sarcastic retort when his feet decided they wanted to move without his permission again. He gaped as a cool black goo bubbled out of his skin, covering his wrist and hand, and a tendril as thick as his arm shot out of him, slamming the male scientist against the glass wall with a loud crack. The black mass released the man, letting him slump to the floor, groaning. Dr. Skirth got hit in the stomach with some of the black stuff, and she was flung like a rag doll into a different wall. 

"Oh my God!" Eddie said. He looked down at the unconscious scientists. "I'm sorry." 

There was the start of a crack in the glass wall. He felt himself be jerked forward, and his hands grabbed the metal gurney thing. Black goo molded over his hands as he lifted it up. He was slamming it over and over again against the wall. Thankfully, the gurney seemed to made of sturdier stuff than the glass. The wall shattered, and Eddie stumbled, sweaty feet slipping on the smooth floor. An alarm blared. A red light flashed above his head. 

 _"There has been a security breach in Lab Sector Three,"_ a mechanical female voice said over the speakers. 

The black receded into his skin. Eddie felt himself crouch, and his body sprung forward. He cleared the pile of jagged glass by a good few feet. Eddie registered a sharp nudge in the center of his head, almost like a headache. It faded as fast as it had come, followed by the deep, bone rumbling voice. 

**Run.**

"Oh, shit. Yeah," Eddie agreed. 

He ran to the lab door and slipped out. He turned around the corner, and his bare feet slapped against the linoleum floor as he sprinted down the hall. 

_"Repeat, repeat. This is a Code Silver. Security breach."_

The alarm seemed to wail louder the further he got from the lab. Eddie's heart leapt into his throat when a guard tried to grab him. 

"Freeze!" the guard yelled. 

Eddie dodged out of the way just in time, and his feet practically ran up the wall. He jumped off the wall, cracking the plaster in the process, and his hands collided with the man's midsection. The guard smacked into the wall. Eddie slid between the other guard's legs and tripped him. He only had a moment to blink in shock before his body jerked to his feet again, and he was running toward the exit. Eddie heard more footsteps coming up behind him. 

He tried to stop himself before he smashed his face in the door, but his foot planted itself right in the center. The door was ripped from its hinges, falling to the side with a clatter. Eddie looked out and saw it led to an underpass. His bare feet stung as he sprinted down the street toward the mouth of the tunnel. Adrenaline pounded in his veins. The surrounding shrubbery and asphalt rushed by in a blur. 

Eddie let out a choked off scream as he flat out ran into the chainlink fence that separated the compound from the woods. He tumbled headfirst down the small declivity. His eyes widened when he felt his body was yanked up, and his feet were on the ground again. Eddie felt his legs carry him faster into the forest. 

The rumble of multiple engines made the hair on the back of his neck stand up, and he looked around, heart thumping. ATVs with the Life Foundation logo emblazoned on their hoods rolled toward him from three different directions. 

"Shit," Eddie breathed. 

His head spun from how quickly his body decided it was going to climb the nearest tree. When he could catch his breath again, he found himself clinging desperately to a branch near the top of the tree. Eddie felt a familiar wave of nausea wash over him at the sight of the ground so far below him, and he shut his eyes. He forced himself to take deep breaths, in and out. In and out. 

"Where the hell did he go?" he heard one of them say. 

"I'm not seeing him!" 

"Spread out. Find him," another ordered. 


	3. Chapter 3

Running, running, running. Eddie sprinted and then slowed into a jog as he reached the backstreets of Los Angeles. Suspicion, he couldn't draw that, and running stupid fast was sure to draw attention to himself. Especially at this time of night. God, what time was it, anyway? The moon was still out. Eddie shook himself out of his rambling thoughts as a homeless man nearly crashed into him with his cart. The scruffy dude started yelling at him. Eddie moved back from him, catching a whiff of his alcohol soaked breath. Ew. Gross. 

The homeless man tried to grab his shoulders to shake him despite the fact that Eddie was backing up still. He felt a shiver run through his body, and a cool sensation spread over his skin. Eddie shuddered. At the first unwelcome sensation of hands pressing against his heated skin, and as a sharp, excruciating spasm assaults his senses, something inside of him snapped, pure animal instinct taking over any remaining rational thought. His vision sort of faded out, everything happening _fast fast too fast_ , and a sharp copper tang flooded his mouth. 

**_Delicious,_** they purred as they licked their lips clean with their long tongue. The aching hole that was his stomach seemed to calm down just a little, and he dropped back to his feet with a gasp.  **Keep going, Eddie. They're still after us.**

"O-okay. Yeah," Eddie responded, sort of on autopilot. He didn't really want to believe that he had just bit that guy's head off, but the blood coating his tongue seemed to differ from his raging denial. He started running again. 

 

Eddie felt restless, or at least, that was the only word that he could use that wasn't a cuss word to describe the incessant itching of his skin and what felt like molten lava bubbling dangerously at his core, lurking, waiting for the inevitable eruption. The heat burnt throughout his upper body and trickled its way down into each individual limb. It was far more intense than his usual bouts of anxiety or periodical nightmares, that was for sure. This was something of an entirely different nature. Eddie tossed and turned in anguish, every which way, until the sheets are twisted up into a chaotic heap and he was adrift within the coarse threads of his two hundred count grey sheets, in a sea of of sweat and dry heat. 

**Eddie...**

"Shut the hell up and let me sleep, damn it," Eddie whined, burying his face in the pillow again. 

**Hungry.**

"Yeah, well, I don't have any more food right now. Just let me sleep for, like, four hours, and I'll get whatever you want in the morning. 'Kay?" Eddie muttered. The rumbling voice went quiet, but there was still a presence there in the back of his mind. But he would be _damned_ if he didn't try to ignore it. Whatever the heck it was. 

 

The young man was able to squeeze in anywhere from at least an hour to two hour’s worth of relatively blissful and undisturbed sleep. That was, until the chiming of his ringtone sliced through the peaceful quiet of the bedroom in a grating loop. Eddie groaned, flopping over onto his side, toward the glow of the display, and reached for his cell phone. It went silent, buzzing once to notify him of the missed call. Eddie rubbed the sleep from his eyes with his free hand and sluggishly tapped in his passcode. It made a little clicking sound as it logged into the home screen. He pulled down the notifications tab. 

**5:31 AM:** 4 Missed Calls. Anne, Anne, Dan, Mom. _Shit._  

Eddie yawned, covering his mouth with the back of his hand, and as he was about to return their calls, probably just to leave a message, he paused midway, his index finger stuck hovering above the screen, becoming increasingly aware of how much  _sweat_ he was covered in. It was very alarming. A disgusting pool of sweat. It’s everywhere, from head to toe. The sheets, the pillow, his clothes. He was completely  _drenched._  The thin white shirt he was wearing clung uncomfortably tight against his scorching skin. His underwear felt like it was in even worse shape. Just a gross, sticky mess. 

What the actual _fuck._  

**Eddie. Food! You promised.**

"Yeah, I know. Just hang on. I gotta, gotta clean up," Eddie told it. 

Eddie made his way into the small bathroom, stumbling for the most part, the hardwood floor slipping under his sweat slick feet, where he found himself standing in front of the sink for what felt like hours, staring down into the dark, rust colored tunnel of the drain until his vision had gone blurry. The cool porcelain was gripped painfully between both of his hands, supporting his full weight, and the soles of his bare feet upon the chilled tiles come as heavenly relief to the liquid fire that continues its rapid descent throughout his body. Somewhere, far away in the background of his room, the phone continued to ring. _Faint, faint, loud, loud,_ until it’s suddenly too _loud,_ like someone's twisted the dial in his head from one and straight to twenty. Eddie nearly jumped out of his skin. 

_It hurt. Make it stop!_

He let out a whine and clapped his hands to his ears, hissing, making an almost feral noise. He made the mistake of looking in the mirror when his eyes opened again as the phone went silent, and he let out a very unmanly shriek at the sight of milky white eyes and jagged, sharp fangs jutting out of his mouth. Eddie stumbled back from the mirror, and the backs of his thighs hit the edge of bathtub, making him fall backwards into it. His hands went out desperately as he fell, and he ended up pulling down the shower curtain and the pole it was attached to. Yay for freaking him. He was just having an awesome start to his day, wasn't he? 

The terror actually seemed to clear his mind, and he realized that he didn't recognize the shower curtain that had fallen on top of him. He wasn't even in his own apartment. Wow, he really must be out of it. The voice sort of buzzed around in the back of his consciousness, sending another aching pulse of _need_ and _hunger_ through him. Eddie gasped pitifully and curled in on himself, shaking and trembling. His trembling hand reached out, and after a few fumbles, he managed to grasp the water knob, and he turned it on. Thank God the water was ridiculously cold. Eddie just laid there and panted for a moment as icy jets of water rained down on him, soaking him through his clothes and the shower curtain. He tilted his head back and let it run over his face. 

**Eddie?**

"Ju-just give me a minute? Please?" Eddie said. 

**...fine.**


End file.
